WE MUST FIGHT FOR OUR HISTORY TO BE HEARD

I cannot remember the circumstances that prompted this poem. I suspect I had been reading a history of the area and the viciousness of the in comers distressed me. I had after all grown up on a diet of American westerns [in fact The Magnificent Seven is still one of my favourite films] and the reality was so different.

OKLAHOMA

It was their children of the immigrants who celebrated,

turning their struggles into a musical,

all bright tunes and stock characters.

Endless acres under a summer blue sky.

The script did not foretell of the Dust Bowl,

none of the songs mentioned the First People,

now imprisoned on reservations.

No. It was all technicolor gaiety.

It’s no wonder we have to fight

for our histories to be heard.

I also have to confess that as a lyricist I prefer Lorenz Hart to Oscar Hammerstein the third. Rodgers apparently had to practically lock Hart up in a hotel room to get him to write, but what sublime lyrics! Hammerstein wrote all the lyrics prior to the music being written by Rodgers and even if they were more popular he was not in the same class as Hart. And this is without discussing the plight of the Indigenous peoples the poem highlights. There is an African proverb: "until lions stat writing their own stories, hunters will always be the heroes". 

Here's Ella Fitzgerald with Bewitched Bothered and Bewildered.

Until next time.